We got our MRI!

(Aug. 29, 2011) WEST DURHAM - About 200 people waved Image is Everything campaign colours and signs and cheered the arrival of the MRI machine at Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering hospital Monday morning.

See a slideshow of all the activities from the day by clicking here.

The flatbed tractor trailer carrying the magnet and all of the parts of the machine arrived in Pickering after 7 a.m. and first visited the Pickering Rec Centre for a photo op with Mayor Dave Ryan and councillors Jennifer O'Connell and Peter Rodrigues, along with MPP Joe Dickson, with City staff, Lucy Stocco, Chair of the Image is Everything campaign and other supporters. See the arrival at Pickering here.

Volunteers and staff members, serving as "human-mile markers", waved and cheered at different spots along Hwy. 2 and Harwood Avenue as the MRI made its way to the hospital, led by a Durham Regional Police escort and the MRI float pulled by Eric Fowler of Digital Signs and Banners.

At the hospital, the large crowd cheered and held a paper chain finish line for the truck to drive through as it wade its way onto hospital property.

Local radio station CKDO Oldies, with show host Terry Johnston and the morning crew, were on site broadcasting live from the hospital. The broadcast started at 5:30 a.m. and throughout the morning updated their audience on the travels of the MRI and interviewed key people in the campaign, along with doctors and staff of the hospital's Digital Imaging Department.

The long and careful process of unpacking the MRI from the truck and lifting it off the flatbed with a crane ended in the early afternoon and construction crews spent the rest of the day carefully moving the machine into place to lift into its final resting space in the MRI suite.

The Rouge Valley Health System Foundation's Image is Everything campaign would like to thank the community for coming out today. The outpouring of support is appreciated, but not a surprise to all involved based on the past 16 months of overwhelming community events and fundraisers held across west Durham.

To see all of the images of the big event, visit the Foundation's Flickr page here.